For various reasons, people are increasingly storing music, video and other types of so-called “media files” or “content” in digital form on their computers. Their computers have become virtual warehouses for their personal collections of music and video, with collections sometimes being distributed over several computers and data storage devices.
Once moved to computers, however, the availability of music and other media content away from the computer becomes an issue. Those who want access to their media files away from their computers typically duplicate some or all of the files back onto portable media, such as compact discs, flash memory, and portable hard drives for playback on other devices, or portable playback devices such as “MP3 players”. Managing all of these copies and other devices then becomes a problem.
Another option is to make files stored on a computer available for remote access through networks. However, setting up a computer for remote access over a local network, much less over a wide area, public network such as the Internet, requires specialized knowledge and skills that most computer users do not possess. It also presents rights-management issues. Furthermore, the use of private network addresses on local area networks, dynamically assigned public network addresses, and other security-related practices present additional problems.